7 ways you're holding yourself back from becoming a huge success

It’s easy to identify all the external factors
responsible for keeping you from achieving your goals. Maybe you
chose a degree in an industry that has seen a recent decline. Maybe
your boss doesn’t appreciate your work. Maybe your business idea
was leveraged by another entrepreneur before you had a chance to
patent it. Most of us can list these types of factors if prompted,
without much hesitation, but it’s much harder to identify the ways
we're keeping ourselves from success-and usually, these factors are
much more significant.

There are two main problems with self-sabotage that
make it notoriously difficult to overcome:

Identification. It’s hard to
know when you’re sabotaging yourself because it often happens
subconsciously-and nobody’s there to tell you when you’re doing
it.

Improvement. Even if you can
identify these sabotaging behaviors and habits, they’re hard to fix
because they’re usually a natural part of your personality!

I don’t claim to have all the answers, but I can help
you with at least the “identification” obstacle. The following are
some of the most common ways people sabotage their own long-term
potential:

1. You give up prematurely

When faced with adversity, a fraction of people
continue and a fraction of people give up; this is true for any
obstacle. Anyone who gives up instantly abandons hope of
progression, while the people who persevere instantly find another
chance for eventual success. This sounds simple on paper, so why do
so many people give up prematurely?

Sometimes it’s because the amount of effort required
for the next phase is intimidating. Sometimes it’s because they
feel defeated and don’t want to suffer that feeling again.
Sometimes it’s because they secretly fear success. You owe it to
yourself to find out why.

2. You don’t cut your losses

There’s a psychological principle investment
demonstrated by a creation known as the dollar auction game. Here’s
the short version: people are predisposed to escalate their
investment in known unfavorable scenarios simply because they’ve
already invested in it. In the dollar auction game, this means
staking more money in an effort to recoup previous losses, to a
ridiculous degree. To you, this may be continuing to work at a
lousy job you’ve already put eight years into. It’s bad to give up
prematurely, but it’s equally bad to keep subjecting yourself to
compounding losses.

3.You refuse to adapt

Think of your goals as a destination and your plans
as a roadmap to get there. When traveling along these roads, you
come to an obstacle. What do you do? A conventional traveler would
simply re-route the path or choose a slightly different
destination. However, in our own lives, we’re more likely to go
back to our point of origin and never mention the incident again.
Why is this? Because adapting is hard. People would rather give up
than adapt, and that makes it nearly impossible to succeed; few
goals can be met without obstacle.

4.You think you’re good enough

Most of these obstacles so far have been rooted in a
lack of esteem, but too much esteem can also be a bad thing. For
example, if you think you’re already good enough for the job, you
won’t prepare for the interview. If you think your business idea is
good enough to attract investors, you won’t work to improve it.
Inevitably, in these scenarios, you’ll hit a major barrier, and you
won’t be able to progress. What then, is the solution? Knowing that
you always have room for improvement, and constantly striving to
achieve it.

5. You fear failure

The fear of failure os rampantly common and
devastating in effect. Culturally, we see failure as both negative
and permanent; if you get an “F” in the class, you’ve disappointed
everyone you know and you’ll never have a chance to take that class
again. This fear haunts us throughout life; if you start a business
and fail, you’ll disappoint everyone and you’ll never have another
chance to succeed. Of course, this isn’t rational-most failures in
real life aren’t permanent. They’re temporary. They aren’t negative
consequences of bad actions; they’re lessons that turn our mistakes
into achievements. If you stop fearing failure, you’ll take more
educated risks and you’ll be more confident in your decisions.

6. You choose comfort

Most of us prefer comfort to discomfort; this is why
we’ve created these terms in the first place. Unfortunately, most
forms of “success” require discomfort; you have to try new things,
go unfamiliar places, do things you’re bad at, and meet
intimidating people to challenge ourselves to grow. This doesn’t
mean you should always choose the uncomfortable option. Instead,
this is meant to illustrate the idea that “uncomfortable” often
means “challenging” under the surface, and challenging things help
us to grow.

7. You wait for the “perfect” moment

Whether you want to start your own business, quit
your job, or invest in a new venture, most of us are crippled by
waiting for the “perfect” time to pull the trigger. We wait for a
little more money, a little more stability, or a little more
information. The problem is, the perfect time never comes. Every
moment is riddled with imperfections and no matter how long you
wait, there will always be a risk associated with your decision.
Stop waiting for the perfect moment and just do what you want to
do.

Throughout this article, I’ve highlighted some of the most common
and most significant forms of self-sabotage, along with some
introductory strategies for how to deal with them. The rest is up
to you. It takes confidence, determination, and willpower to
successfully overcome these internal mental hurdles, but that
doesn’t mean it’s impossible. Know your weaknesses, stick to your
goals, and most importantly, don’t give up on yourself.